Sex and the Three Day Week @ Liverpool Playhouse
In 19th-century France, Georges Feydeau’s L'Hôtel du libre échange delighted audiences with its depiction of the farcical mayhem hidden within a Parisian hotel. Its combination of mistaken identities, sexual deviance, bizarre scenarios and hugely exaggerated characters served as both a source of entertainment for the audience and a recipe for disaster for the onstage characters. Like most examples of farce, the unfortunate victims subjected to such ruthless parody were members of the upper classes – in this case, Parisian. Fast-forward a hundred years and place the action in 1970s Britain: here we have Stephen Sharkey’s Sex and the Three Day Week.
Not so happily married Angela and Philip check in for a night of unexpected surprises and outrageous mishaps at the ironically named Paradise Hotel. While the sexually dissatisfied couple might get more than they bargained for during their stay, classical comedy lovers everywhere will feel a familiar comfort at being greeted with their favourite farcical archetypes, including Fanny the French maid and a detective inspector (no doubt employing all of his best tactics and most useless knowledge to get to the bottom of the strange antics).
It will be interesting to see if Sharkey successfully marries the social and historical context of 1970s Britain with the dramatic techniques of farce. Can drama which is heavily reliant on comic brevity and laughs per minute also provide a commentary on the weighty themes of austerity, strikes and political upheavals that characterised 70s Britain? Or will it merely poke fun at the gaping disparity between the upper and working classes? Sharkey might have taken inspiration from 19th-century divides, but does his portrayal of 1970s Britain offer us an insight into our own present-day society? It is worth a watch to find out.